The Original Highwaymen
- *Harold Newton
- *Alfred Hair
- *Roy McLendon Sr.
- *Livingston Roberts
- *James Gibson
- Sam Newton
- *Mary Ann Carroll
- *Willie Daniels
- *Johnny Daniels
- *Ellis Buckner
- *George Buckner
- *Hezekiah Baker
- Al Black
- *Rodney Demps
- *Lemuel Newton
- *Isaac Knight
- *Alphonso Moran
- Willie Reagan
- Robert Lewis
- *Robert Butler
- Sylvester Wells
- *Charles Walker
- Curtis Arnett
- *John Maynor
- *Carnell Smith
- *Charles Wheeler
Please note: The names with an asterisk means deceased
One of America’s most intriguing art stories is unfolding in Florida. It centers around a group of young African American landscape artists who, in the mid-1950s, eschewed social and artistic conventions and asserted their economic independence and agency during and after segregation by painting Florida landscapes. Over the next eight decades, the Florida Highwaymen group may have created an incredible 250,000 paintings.
For almost 40 years, the 26 artists (including one woman) toiled in relative obscurity before being discovered and named in 1995. Art was their road to opportunity and freedom from the drudgery of long, hard days offered to most African Americans in Florida’s crop fields during that time.
The group’s two key protagonists, Harold Newton and Alfred Hair, were strongly influenced and, in the case of Hair, taught by Florida’s preeminent landscape artist of that era, A. E. “Bean” Backus. The other artists would learn from those two but were primarily self-taught. The artists constantly mentored, pushed and encouraged one another. They painted quickly, developed production line methods to reduce art costs, and sold their art directly to customers.
Capitalizing on Florida’s booming 50s and 60s economy, they eagerly hawked their art along the roadways of Florida, selling affordable art to businesses, homeowners, tourists and professionals. Their “Florida Art Factory” defined a new art marketplace and developed a unique art style depicting the richness and variety of Florida’s landscapes. Their sociable nature and captivatingly iconic art enabled the Highwaymen to cross any and all social, cultural, and artistic borders. They had found a way out of “no way” (a phrase used to express the Black community’s resilience, creativity and perseverance).
For the Highwaymen, art was much more than a means to an end; it was a statement of freedom and self-determination, and for them, it became their realization of the American Dream.
For art lovers, the Highwaymen are an incredible opportunity to own a significant piece of American art history at an affordable price. Highwaymen’s art helps to define an era and conveys a story of the tumultuous and changing mid-century and the struggle for racial equality. Their art captures a legacy of a subtropical, almost primordial “la Florida” before it was lost to time and the rampant tools of man.
The touchstones of the Highwaymen are many. Their epic art saga has no comparison; their prolific production is incomparable, and their stunningly vivid impressionisms of Florida are both iconic and captivating. Many believe we are on the cusp of the Highwaymen phenomenon spreading beyond Florida, across America and beyond.
They painted to earn an honest day’s pay, but their decades-long journey has taken their art to the world’s far corners. Apparently, they are earning the moniker some have given them, “The Last Great American 20th Century Art Movement.”